


All is Forgotten

by 401



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst, Brainwashing, Bucky Barnes Feels, Fighting, Helmut Zemo is a sneaky fuck, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Memory Loss, Role Reversal, Torture, brainwashed steve rogers, but not very good at it, zemo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-31
Updated: 2016-08-31
Packaged: 2018-08-12 05:17:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,786
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7921963
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/401/pseuds/401
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Zemo uses the same technology used to turn Bucky into the Winter Soldier, to try and turn Steve against Bucky. Bucky battles his own lost memories to help Steve find his.</p>
            </blockquote>





	All is Forgotten

The small bunker was a dark fortress of shade and damp. There were meters and dials to the left of him, but what was behind him was invisible, either too far to be seen or cloaked in shadows.

Steve squeezed his eyes shut and focused on the only the thing that he could; clinging onto memories, slippery images that flashed like reflections against disturbed water. He held onto anything that passed through these waters. His apartment, Natasha, Sam, the colour of his motorbike, the chevron pattern on his bedsheets. Bucky. Always Bucky.

“I wanted to do this the easy way, Captain. Speaking, man to man. We have both lost. You know how I am feeling and you are a man of empathy and compassion,” Helmut Zemo whispered calmly, fiddling with the machine that Steve was strapped to, "I was hoping you would be smart enough to help."

“You lost my respect as a man when you drugged me while my back was turned,” Steve growled, his chest heaving with the exertion of weathering the intermittent shocks of current that were ripping through him, "You're bitter, you're childish and you are vengeful."

His tongue felt heavy, lead in his mouth and his wrists were secured. Zemo turned the trigger button over in his hands idly. It was a small, unassuming black box but Steve had a feeling that, if his brains had not been turned to soup by the end of all of this, that little box would be visiting him in his nightmares. Zemo pressed the trigger and the box showed its power, sending wave after wave of electricity through the plates on either side of Steve’s head. The Captain stifled a scream, choking on it silently as tears ran down the sides of his face and hit the charged metal, sizzling and evaporating instantly. The burning pressure was unbearable, aching behind his eyes and threatening to split his skull down the middle, but then it waned, taking with it the last of images that Steve had been holding, like sea foam dragged back by the tide.

Names lost their owners, words lost their meanings, feelings lost their causes.

“You know this man?” Zemo asked, pushing his chair closer to him and wiping a trail of blood that was running from Steve's left nostril with a jarring affection that made his stomach curl. He held up a small photograph.

“Winter,” Steve breathed out, “The Winter Soldier.”

The brunette in the photograph was familiar. The worded ‘wanted’ blistered through Steve’s mind.

“He’s a shield fugitive,” Steve mumbled numbly, feeling unconsciousness creeping up.

Slowly, he found himself doubting how he had gotten to where he was. Clarity somehow escaped him even further.

“Are you a superior officer?” Steve slurred, “He’s dangerous. I know him…”

Zemo struck a hard slap against Steve’s cheek, pulling him back from the brink as his eyes shuddered closed.

“That’s why I need you, Captain,” Zemo explained.

A satisfaction rose in the small man’s stomach at the obedient nod that followed. The technology had seemingly stood the test of time, rotting away in this bunker. He had heard stories of its use in the records he had managed to salvage from Soviet files.

“You are going to find him for me, and you are going to take him down,” Zemo continued, unhooking some of the electrodes from Steve’s temples, “You know why?”  


Steve shook his head. The movement made him nauseous.

“Because that is your mission,” he smiled, “And you wouldn’t want to make a mess of that now, would you Captain?”

 

Steve took another look at the photograph.

 

That was his mission. _That was his mission._

_###_

Bucky paced awake in the small apartment that he was safehousing in. Steve’s last known destination played over in his head.

_He found you, but you can’t find him._

He shook the critical voice from his head and threw a solid punch into the wall, frustration at his own helplessness bubbling over and spilling around him, a true reflection of the mess and chaos in his mind. The truth was, he could not _remember_ the last place he had been with Steve. The lack of cryofreeze and conditioning left anything detailed, like street names or memories of mundane tasks in a jumbled heap of information. It was like his brain would only hold onto the really important things, big blocks of knowledge, fearing that it would lose it all again.

“Where were we?” Bucky muttered out loud, pushing the heels of his hands to his eyes until his vision blurred, “Where did you _go?”_

“Ilfov County,” A voice said quietly from behind him.

Bucky wheeled around and felt the relief wash over him.

“Jesus Steve, where did you…”

Bucky was cut short by the impact of the shield hitting him in the ribs. He choked out a protest but was caught to unarmed to block the next strike, this time hitting him on the cheek bone.

“Steve, what…are…you,” Bucky managed to growl out, struggling to keep the shield at a safe distance from his face.

Steve wrestled him forward, pushing them both onto the floor of the apartment and pinning Bucky with a well-placed knee to the sternum.

 _Come on, training. Do me some justice,_ Bucky willed to himself.

“This doesn’t have to be painful,” Steve said flatly, pressing one hand to Bucky’s trachea and using the other to strike him again with the shield.

Something glazed over and disappeared in the Captain’s eyes that Bucky was sickeningly familiar with. Autonomy. There was something far too robotic about the Captain’s movements. They were brutal, that of a man enraged but they didn’t match with the calm calculation on his face.

“Who did this, Steve,” Bucky groaned, tackling Steve so that he could at least breath.

The Captain did not respond but instead dropped the shield and threw punches instead.

“Tell me who your superior is,” Bucky coughed over a mouthful of blood and bits of his back teeth, “Who asked you to do this.”

 

“It’s my mission,” Steve shouted through a clenched jaw, throwing a punch that filled Bucky’s vision with clouds.

 

Bucky wrestled Steve’s arms to his sides, switching their roles so that he was on top, able to shield his face a little more effectively. He repeated the mantra ‘don’t pass out’ over in his aching head.

“You were mine, remember?” He reasoned breathlessly, “You were my mission but then I remembered how much you meant to me. I remembered how long I had known you for.”  


The Captain pulled a tortured face of confusion and frustration, struggling against Bucky’s weight and the force of steel fingers against the pressure point in his collarbone. His right side went numb and unresponsive.

“Let go,” Steve snarled, “I need to finish this.”  


“No,” Bucky said quietly, increasing the pressure and watching as Steve’s eyes lost some of the glazed quality and filled with tears.

“No, all you need to do is _listen_ to me,” Bucky grunted, “This isn’t you, this isn’t what you want.”

Steve made a noise of anger in the back of his throat that came out as a sob. He lurched forward into an attempted headbutt, but Bucky caught him, pinning him back against the floor.

“You’ve got burns on your temples, you know how you got those?” Bucky continued.

Steve gritted his teeth and pushed harder, to no avail.

“Whoever gave them to you didn’t know what they were doing. You should be insulated in those machines. That’s why you aren’t fighting well, that’s why I’m stronger than you, and that’s why this is all going to fade pretty soon. Too much, too fast,” Bucky said softly.

Images fractured suddenly from the trapped Captain’s head. Electricity, pain, light. The man in the photograph.

“Shut up!” Steve sobbed in frustration, “I have a job to do.”

Bucky loosened his grip and climbed off of Steve, putting his hands up.

“Do your job then, Captain,” Bucky surrendered, “I’m right here.”  


Bucky watched an exhausted Steve got up shakily and tried to adopt a fighting stance. He met the Captain’s eyes and held the contact. Steve swung forward and Bucky executed his plan.

“4th July 1918, Coney Island, your favourite food is pastrami on rye, you hate minty toothpaste, you’re forgetful, but nowhere near as forgetful as me. You cut the tags out of your t-shirts and you always seem to wear odd socks. Algebra makes you nervous, you laugh at my sneeze, your best friend is called Sam,” Bucky rattled off, holding the stunned Captain’s hands in front of him.

“One day in 1939, I kissed you for too long and you passed out, your mom called you ‘Steven’ when you were in trouble, you eat the edges of your sandwiches first, I leave the edges off my sandwiches completely.”

"You can fall asleep literally anywhere, you can make really good eggs, you like orange juice with the bits in, you can't dance, you can sing though, you couldn't tie your laces till you were 10, your favourite book is To Kill A Mockingbird."

“You’re tired, you’re hurt and you need to listen to me because I know what’s going on. You feel like your head is splitting open and you’ve been promised that the pain will stop if you kill me, but it won’t. You’ll just wake up in a world of regret because the Steve I saw earlier was willing to risk it all to keep me alive,” Bucky took a breath, still holding Steve’s hands. They trembled in his.

“Bucky,” Steve croaked out, his voice dry and sore.

“Steve,” Bucky repeated back, sitting them both down on the floor.

“I don’t like this,” Steve whispered desperately, “Tell me what's happening, I don’t like this one bit. Everything is blurry.”

Bucky nodded, knowing the feeling all too well. He pulled Steve to his chest squeezed.

“It will get clearer,” He reassured, “Things will fall into place. You’ll be better by the morning. Zemo clearly didn’t do enough reading on that machine.”

Steve looked up at Bucky’s mouth and winced with guilt. The corner was split and bruised, bloodied by punches that he knew that he had thrown.

“I guess we’re even now, huh?” Bucky chuckled, sighing as he carded through Steve’s hair absently.

The room seemed to decompress around them, falling quiet and comfortable. Steve buried his face closer to Bucky’s chest. The images in the rippled water behind his eyes began to make some more sense, clubbing back together and finding their places, drifting like magnets.

It was not long before the water fell still, all that was forgotten was remembered, and all that had gone wrong was forgotten.

  


  


 

 

 

 


End file.
